If you benefit and learn from the FDP and enjoy our site, please help support us and become a Contributing Member or make a Donation today! The FDP counts on YOU to help keep the site going with an annual contribution. It's quick and easy with PayPal. Please do it TODAY!

I mean, can you take say 100 or 300 or whatever # of windings off a pickup (Tele, in the immediate case) and solder it back into working order? I don't see why that would be so difficult, although maybe there is some danger getting the cover off in a gentle fashion. Eh?

Getting the covrr off the Tele neck pickup is easy. The difficulty comes in being very gentle with the coil wire because it is extremely delicate. This becomes a bit more difficult when the coil has been wax potted, so warm it up with a hair dryer to soften the wax before you start unwinding it.

Look at a few YT vids about making pickups so you can see what's involved.

""Getting the covrr off the Tele neck pickup is easy. The difficulty comes in being very gentle with the coil wire because it is extremely delicate. This becomes a bit more difficult when the coil has been wax potted, so warm it up with a hair dryer to soften the wax before you start unwinding it.""

1) So, gently removing the cover should not cause breaks in windings?

2) If you soften/melt the wax, is it required to add some was back after you're finished? I have an ounce of (rather nicely fragrant) beeswax hanging around.

Yeah, it's pretty safe to remove the cover. Bend the tabs back all the way first, so you don't have to force anything, and warm the cover up a little to allow it to release from the bobbin. It should slide off with little to no resistance.

You can warm the metal cover with a soldering stick. Use a little piece of aluminum foil over the tip of the stick so no solder gets on the cover. No need to get it hot...just warm so the wax potting releases and lets the cover come off.

Best way to pot the pickup is to fully immerse it in molten wax, until the existing wax on the bobbin turns clear. You cam also do this with the cover on. Pure paraffin wax is too hard. Beeswax, surfboard wax, and (yes) wax from a toilet ring works great.

My 65 P bass did not reject neon light buzz. I replaced the pickup with a Dimarzio P pickup when they first came out. The D & G coil never matched the E & A coil.

Years later, I pulled the pickup out of my junk box and measured it. (I had learned a lot.) Sure enough, the E&A coil had far more windings. I removed wire from the coil until it matched the other coil. Noiseless and balanced. I used it on a Ripper bass mod, where I added it between the Ripper pickups.

"""For years, we’ve answered these questions with an online article about how the great pickup maker, Lindy Fralin, does it. Described in that story is Lindy’s recipe for potting wax: 80% paraffin and 20% beeswax.But the other day a customer emailed to say “Hey StewMac! Lindy doesn’t use beeswax anymore — he uses candle wax.” When I heard that, I called Lindy to get an update.
It turns out Lindy’s done some new research, with the result that he no longer uses beeswax at all. He’s switched to paraffin, the petroleum-based wax sold in the supermarket for making candles and sealing jelly jars. He likes the fact that paraffin melts at a lower temperature, so there’s less of a chance of a coil being damaged by heat.

Lindy’s other reason for ditching beeswax surprised me: he says beeswax darkens the tone of his pickups, affecting the sound in a way he doesn’t like. With paraffin, he hears a clearer tone with better highs than what he heard when using a mixture of the two. That’s interesting new information. Thanks, Lindy!""

""Unwind about 75-100 wraps and measure that. Proceed the same way (unwrap, measure) until you get into the ballpark.""

My multimetre's measurement lines, up in the thousands, are not fine enough that I will have much confidence in them. I'd be lucky to tell 7k from 8k. So give us a guess, Oh pickupologists,: how many windings would have to be removed to lower the resistance from 7.6k to 7.2k, more or less? Eh?

Moderators: Chris GreeneIron Manreverendrob
FDP, LLC Privacy Policy: Your real name, username, and email
are held in
confidence and not disclosed to any third parties, sold, or used for
anything other than FDP Forum registration unless you specifically
authorize disclosure.